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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Absinthe Jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1

Ready to jailbreak your iOS device? Great! You're in luck – a brand-new update to a popular jailbreaking tool was just released yesterday and, with it, you'll be able to perform the most elegant of the jailbreaking techniques: The fabled "untethered" jailbreak.Gibberish? Gotcha. We'll start from the beginning. The Chronic Dev Team, prolific iOS exploiters that they are, released their updated Absinthe 2.0 tool yesterday. The software couldn't make it any easier for owners of a wide list of iOS devices (detailed on the official Green Pois0n website) to jailbreak them, so long as they're running the latest 5.1.1 update for Apple's iOS.What does jailbreaking allow you to do? First off, you can tap into third-party app stores (like Cydia) to grab apps and games that you wouldn't otherwise be able to find on Apple's App Store. Additionally, a number of these apps allow you to use your device in ways Apple wouldn't allow: For example, IntelliScreenX jacks up your Notifications Center with all kinds of crazy new options, whereas Gridlock allows you to set exactly where you want your icons to go on your home screen (no automatic alignment!)

Convinced yet? Here's one downside to jailbreaking your device: Installing new updates from Apple can be a pain in the butt, as they might very well jack up your device or revert it back to its normal, unjailbroken state. Tread carefully. Also, any problems you have with your iPhone or iPad that might be taken care of by Apple's Genius Bar could be yours to deal with exclusively – jailbreaking does void your Apple warranty, for what it's worth.On the plus side, the Absinthe tool simplifies jailbreaking down to a (nearly) one-click process. To start, you'll want to connect your device to iTunes and back everything up – a step that's not to be overlooked, trust us. Because once you've done that, you're going to want to wipe your device back down to its factory defaults using the "Erase all Content and Settings" option found within your device's Settings menu.

After that, make sure your device is still connected to your computer via its USB cable and run Absinthe. Click on the big "Jailbreak" button. Make a sandwich… and don't disconnect your device until Absinthe is done.Once finished, go back to your device in iTunes and restore all of the content you previously backed up. Ta-da! Your iOS device is now jailbroken, your information has been placed back onto your device, and you're free to fiddle around with the grand new (jailbroken) world you've opened up.